Riegens Lighting enters administration in UK

Riegens Lighting has gone into administration in the UK.

The company went into administration on Monday and has appointed FRP Advisory as administrator. FRP is seeking a buyer for Riegens Lighting as a going concern.

Danish parent company Riegens A/S has not entered administration and is not in financial difficulty, CEO Claus Jarlgaard Jensen (pictured) told Lux.

Jensen said: 'The reason for the administration filing was a wish from Riegens to secure a continued and strong presence in the UK market for Riegens through a restructuring of Riegens Lighting Ltd... We see a great potential in this market not only for traditional lighting solution but also for LED solutions. We have a very strong presence in Denmark, the rest of Scandinavia and a number of export markets for LED solutions, which we would like to use productively in UK.'

Jensen, who has served as acting managing director of the UK business since previous managing director David Trueblood left in March, said Riegens Lighting continues to trade while in administration and that customers should not notice any changes. 'We will continue to supply our broad range of lighting solutions both to the commercial and to the retail market,' he said.

The Danish business's revenue was flat in 2012 at 187 million krone (approximately £21 million), with profits growing to 10.5 million krone (approximately £1.2 million), but poor performance in the UK meant that the company overall saw a 15 per cent sales decline to 269 million krone (approximately £31 million), and a net loss of 6.8 million krone (approximately £800,000).

Riegens Lighting is the second major lighting company to go into administration in the UK this year, after Abacus went bust in May and had to be rescued by new investors.

UPDATE: This story was updated at 16:00 on 8/8/13 to add quotes from Claus Jensen and other details